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Access Control Reader ’

Anti-PassBack is a feature in our access control software that can be used to make sure people scan in and out of your building in that order. You need to have 2 access control readers per door; one on the outside and one on the inside. When an employee comes in they will scan their card on the outside and the door opens. Then when they leave, they must scan the reader on the inside in order to get out. If they do not scan out, the card will not work on the outside reader again, and so they will not be let in. What that means is if they scan in, in the morning and do not scan out, the outdoor reader will not let them in the next time they try and scan in. You must scan in, scan out, and then they will have access granted from the outside again.

Why would I use Anti-PassBack?

The only reason why I would use Anti-PassBack is simply for tracking when employees are coming and going and how often they are coming and going. It is also useful for when you require employees to have their access control cards on them at all times. In my testing I used two users, Kuchuk and El Jeffe. If Kuchuk walks up to the door first, and before he can scan in El Jeffe says “Dude I forgot my fob at home, can you scan in and throw me your fob out the window so the cameras see me scan in?”.

Unfortunately for El Jeffe, this will not work, because the user Kuchuk scans in, throws his fob to El Jeffe and the card will not let him in a second time, unless that user scans the indoor reader to get out first, and then he will regain access from the outside.

How Do I Configure Anti-PassBack?

First thing’s first. You need to build your access control database in the software. You need to start by getting your access control board on your network and then adding it to the software. You can do so by using the tool below. This is a web service enabler which is where you change the IP address to your scheme.

Once you have done this, you can add the board into the software by choosing “Basic Config” > “Controllers” > “Search” and then add your board to the software. Once you have done that you need to add your departments by choosing the “Department” tab under Basic Config and “Add Top”. For my article I used “Article Test” as my department name. Once you have that, it is time to add users. The way I like to do this is to add them by swiping the cards, look at the top left of the software and choose “Auto Add Cards By Swiping”. When you have that up scan the first card, choose the department, and click OK. As soon as you have added the card, go to Basic Config > Personnel > and enter the name that will go with that card. make sure to do this for every card you scan so you do not get confused and be sure to label them as you go so you know which card belongs to who.

Now that all of your departments, and users have been added to the database you need to enable Anti-PassBack. At the bottom left side of the software choose “Tools” > “Extended Functions” > 5678 is the password. Look at the picture below (left) and see that “Activate Anti-PassBack” needs to be enabled. To enable it, check the box for it and click OK. The software will make you close it and reopen it, if you click yes to do so it will do it on its own and all you have to do is log in again. Now when you go into “Access Control”, you will see a new tab for Anti-PassBack. Open it up, choose your board, and click edit. I am using a 4 door board so mine looks like this, below (right). In this case I will choose No. 1 /No. 2 No. 3 / No. 4. This is showing you that readers 1 and 2 are grouped to the same door and 3 and 4 are grouped to another door.

That wasn’t so hard was it? Now all there is to do is to upload it all to the board and watch it work. To upload it all to the board go to “Basic Operate” > choose “select all” > “Upload” and pres ok. It will let you know this is successful. As soon as this says it was successful you are ready to go. I will show you that it works here by monitoring the readers. I will choose select all, then monitor, and if you see the picture below you will see how it works. Notice how Kuchuk scans in, then passes his fob to El Jeffe but El Jeffe is denied access. El Jeffe then throws the fob back to Kuchuk who then scans out and back in successfully. Then you will notice that El Jeffe has learned his lesson and comes to the office tomorrow with his fob, scans in, scans out for lunch and then back in all successfully. Remember, once you have scanned in, you can not gain access from outside without scanning yourself out first.

I have to say, not too many people will have a need for this feature, but if you do feel the need to know when employees are coming and going this is the best way for you to know. If you have a guy who decides to take several smoke breaks a day to the point where it gets out of hand, he will have no choice other than to scan in and out every time he leaves the building in order to get back in. That will tell you, as the employer, how much of your time he is wasting. If for any reason at all you feel like you need some help or a clearer explanation please give us a call at (866) 573-8878. Thank You!

Many customers have contacted us to help them with their access control needs and sometimes it can be cumbersome to explain. In this article I will show you How To Wire an Access Control Board. I will use our DX Series 2 Door Access control Board (ACP-DXEL2), a Proximity Card Reader (ACR-DXRF01), an electronic door strike (ACDS-DX1500SE), 22-8 wire and a power supply with at least 3 or 5 amps.

In this article I will cover the steps to wire the electronic door strike and access control reader to the board and test the system.

Note: In order to make the system work, our Free Access Control Software needs to be installed in your PC. You will need to program the Access Control Board in the software, create a user, and assign at least one card to that user. Also, it is necessary to create at least one zone in the software to properly identify in the logs which door has been triggered.

Lets look at the components we will be using:

2 Door Access Control Board – DX Series

Weather Resistant Access Control Reader – DX Series

Fail-Secure Electronic Door Strike – DX Series

If we take a closer look at the access control board you will noticed certain labels on each of these terminals. On some access control boards you will have two reader inputs per door terminal and a push to exit input as well. These two reader inputs are there if you want to use a reader to exit the secure site of the room without using a push to exit button.

The first setup I will do is the wiring of the power supply I will be using. I’m using a 12V 5amp power supply and from there I will be using a distribution block to run my power to some of the components. It also keeps it clean when explaining the wiring.

This is another diagram that shows where each device goes where:

Looking at the diagram we can see that there are two reader ports in this board per door. You can also see the outputs (Door Strikes, Mag-locks) and other ports such as Ethernet and the fire controller port.

I will explain the wires on this RFID reader. These readers have 7 wires. Each wire is colored and is important to know where each of these wires go where.

These are the wires that we will need to connect to the access control board. The last two cables can be connected together and connect to the LED port of the Board. Having these two cables together will basically make the “beep” and the light work the same as the sound. In other words if the sound is 2 beeps then the light will blink 2 times along with the audio.

The red and black cable are very important to be connected correctly and not crossed, otherwise it will damage the equipment and the access control board. The green and white are the data cables (Wiegand). These should be connected correctly so when cards are scanned through the readers it sends the data to board and therefore access is granted or denied.

Power connections to the board and outputs are easy. Lets take a look at the power terminals and relay terminals from the access control board. Depending on the output you use, the connections to the relay terminals could be different.

If you noticed from top to bottom, the board has different inputs. The top port will be the power input for the board itself. You will need to run a jumper cable from the 12V (positive) port to the COM port; this will allow the relays on the board to operate.

Also if you pay close attention to the power supply, you could also run the 12V (positive) cable to the COM port directly.

Let’s take a look at the connections of the electronic door strike. Usually strikes are Normally Open (NO) devices. Normally Open devices (NO) require power to change its state. These devices sometimes are referred to as Fail Secure, as they require electricity to unlock. For this demonstration I am working with a Fail Secure Strike, which means that if the power fails, the strike will stay locked.

This particular strike comes with 2 cables which have no order in how they are connected to the board and power supply. To connect the electric strike to the board, simply run one of the wires to the (NO) port of the Access Control Board, and the other one to the negative port of the power supply. That’s all there is to it.

You could test the connections manually if you login to the board through the web service. You can download this Web Configuration Tool to find the board in the network and enable the web service of the access control board.

After you have set that up, then you can access the access control board by its IP address. The default username and password is abc for username and 123 for password.

Once you have access to the board you can click on “Open Door” to activate the strike and test your connections. You could also configure certain things like door delay, add cards, change the board’s time, etc.

NOTE: The connections in the board are labeled properly. Reader ports will have RD1 or RD2 depending of how many doors the board supports. Also The board outputs will be labeled as well. These can be labeled as DR1, DR2 etc. There are also other ports and these can be for push to exit buttons and door contacts.

If you would like to have access to the board remotely, the only possible way will be accessing a computer on the network where the board is connected.

At this point if you have followed everything in here you should be confident that the system will work after you configure the software. I will be making a Part 2 of this article that will explain how to configure the software, add departments, personnel and upload those settings to the board.

Smart cards are generally a plastic card that has an embedded microchip and possibly a micro-processor. These chips can store data or process data. The data is usually associated with information and a value and transact with the card’s processor if it has one. Systems that can greatly benefit from smart card technology are inventory management, people management, time card and attendance, access control, and health care. Really anywhere you want to monitor and or limit access to an area you can see the value in smart cards.

Smart cards have been around for decades in many types of applications. Two applications that seem to have been around forever would be ATM/credit cards and calling cards. In the phone cards the magnetic strip made the card a “smart” card. It stored information such as showing how many minutes you had on the card per a calling zone or country code. If you called outside of the country you activated the card in, you typically got fewer minutes as it costs more to call different countries. ATM/credit cards carry considerably more information in their magnetic stripe. Going down the road to 1999, people found you could get devices to read peoples card at range. For example if I had the right device I could read your card while in your pocket. Then clone your card and start spending your money. I know because it actually happened to me. Basically using the reader the criminals could make dummy cards of my original.

Newer smart card technology works off of layers of materials. These cards are made of pressed or laminated polyester or PVC. Inside of the basic smart card is a small chip with a copper wire coming off of it wrapped into many windings. This card is set to a certain frequency. Your card reader picks it up as a specific number value. This value corresponds to a column in a database. This typically lets an individual gain access to a restricted area or areas. The database has to have the card added to allow access to these restricted areas. This type of card, sometimes referred to as RFID passive smart card, has no information of value stored on it. They have a number printed on the back of them and that is the value you must enter into your database that controls the access. The range on this card is 10 centimeters. Most people end up tapping the card to the reader.

Memory smart cards have the ability to store and delete and that is it. Institutions that have implemented this force wide are the military. These cards shine for soldier record keeping. Before a soldier had to carry paper records between duties stations as they were moved about the world. This was open to many issues from loss to tampering with. Most soldiers have two files. The first is your 201 file that tracks where you have been and what you have done in your career with the military. The other file is their medical record. The 201 file is important to limit access to as external threats may use them to try to impersonate personnel to gain access to restricted areas, or set themselves up for early promotions. The medical file is extremely important as it has your medical history contained. Past surgery’s and health issues that doctors need to know now. Instead of waiting for the paper file to show up, now with a swipe of a card all information can be realized. Memory cards can be fitted with different storage sizes depending on your needs. As cards of this type are straight memory cards your reader would need to be configured to read it. Readers are not smart in that they have an auto detect feature to determine card type and protocols needed to read the card.

Micro-processor cards in the family of smart cards are engineered for high security encryption protocols and counter measures. Smart cards of this type are designed to allocate memory into separate sectors for storage for files assigned to a specific function or application. Built inside of the card are the microprocessor and a battery. The CPU operates similar to a standard PC processor in the sense it does have an operating system with capabilities that permits different and multiple functions. The ability to run different applications and types of data gives the card versatility the early cards just did not physically allow for. With the ability of these cards to have applications on them other types of security encryption can be used further prevent tampering and cloning of cards. The technology allows secure identification of the individuals and allows updates of information with card replacement. This can lower programming costs and enable re-usability as updates and changes come out. Similar to a PC when updating the operating system. You download new information install it and configure it, you would not just run out and buy another computer. The card does have to have power in many cases. A small battery will be installed inside of the card. Some card manufactures designed the card for the battery to be replaced others do not. Buyers beware on which card you get as this can turn out to be a hidden cost on an already expensive system.

There are many configuration options for the chips for cards in this category. Cards with smart chips can support cryptography public key infrastructure to Java, so they are very versatile.

The form factor on these cards varies. The card most people have seen is about the size of a standard credit card but considerably thicker. That style accommodates both RFID and smart cards. Another style with several variants is the key fobs. They can be the size of a key fob for a car, some smaller than others. All can be smart but few if any allow for battery replacement. Another newer style is a sticker the size of a nickel and about 2 mm thick. That is great for sticking to a cell phone or other device you have all the time.

Access control cards come in many shapes and size with many different features. Always make sure to read and ask questions before purchasing yours.